THE VALUE OF BALANCE CONFIDENCE IN OLDER ADULT FALL RISK ASSESSMENT

Abstract Fall risk assessment traditionally focuses on objective physical performance. Balance confidence, a subjective measure of physical function, may provide important information to better predict fall risk and guide assessment and intervention strategies. This study examines the associations of balance confidence congruency with physical performance measures and fall occurrence. One-hundred-fifty-five community-dwelling adults aged 60 and over completed a comprehensive fall risk assessment including physical performance tests (timed up and go, 4-stage balance, 30-second chair stand, and 4-M gait speed), activities-specific balance confidence (ABC) scale, and self-reported falls in the past year. Four groups were created based on congruency between balance confidence (low vs. high) and each physical performance measure or overall fall risk category (at fall risk vs. not at fall risk, based on the STEADI tool kit). Poison regression analyses, adjusted for age and gender, tested the association between group membership and number of falls in the past year. Participants with high balance confidence and at fall risk based on 4-stage balance performance (Estimate=0.88, p < 0.001), or high balance confidence and at fall risk following the STEADI screening algorithm (Estimate=0.69, p = 0.003) were at increased risk of more falls compared to participants in the group with high balance confidence and not at fall risk. These results suggest that older adults who overestimate their balance relative to their physical performance may be at increased fall risk, and that participant subjective reporting of physical performance should be paired with objective physical performance measures to better identify older adults at fall risk.


THE VALUE OF BALANCE CONFIDENCE IN OLDER ADULT FALL RISK ASSESSMENT
Tiffany Hughes 1 , Edmund Ickert 2 , Garrett Kellar 2 , Lucy Kerns 2 , and Cara Berg-Carramusa 2 , 1. Youngstown State University,Beaver,Pennsylvania,United States,2. Youngstown State University,Youngstown,Ohio,United States Fall risk assessment traditionally focuses on objective physical performance. Balance confidence, a subjective measure of physical function, may provide important information to better predict fall risk and guide assessment and intervention strategies. This study examines the associations of balance confidence congruency with physical performance measures and fall occurrence. One-hundred-fifty-five communitydwelling adults aged 60 and over completed a comprehensive fall risk assessment including physical performance tests (timed up and go, 4-stage balance, 30-second chair stand, and 4-M gait speed), activities-specific balance confidence (ABC) scale, and self-reported falls in the past year. Four groups were created based on congruency between balance confidence (low vs. high) and each physical performance measure or overall fall risk category (at fall risk vs. not at fall risk, based on the STEADI tool kit). Poison regression analyses, adjusted for age and gender, tested the association between group membership and number of falls in the past year. Participants with high balance confidence and at fall risk based on 4-stage balance performance (Estimate=0.88, p < 0.001), or high balance confidence and at fall risk following the STEADI screening algorithm (Estimate=0.69, p = 0.003) were at increased risk of more falls compared to participants in the group with high balance confidence and not at fall risk. These results suggest that older adults who overestimate their balance relative to their physical performance may be at increased fall risk, and that participant subjective reporting of physical performance should be paired with objective physical performance measures to better identify older adults at fall risk. This symposium provides diverse findings documenting the long reach of social relations over generations. Ali and Rohner examine data from 41 adult offspring showing that recalled perception of rejection of parents during childhood are associated with fewer positive caregiving behaviors and social interactions with their now aging parents. Using three waves of longitudinal data over 23 years, Manalel, Cleary & Antonucci examine changes in composition, proximity, and contact frequency in social relations among 193 participants who were 8-12 years old at wave 1 (1992). Findings indicate increased diversity from wave 1 to 2 and increased stability from Wave 2 to 3, reflecting normative life transitions. Gender and race differences were also evident. Suitor, Gilligan, Frase & Stepniak examine 725 adult (aged 30-60) children's experience of their mother's advice concerning experienced depression and whether these differ by race, age, and gender. While there were no age differences, men, regardless of race and black daughters receiving advice had higher levels of depression but this had little effect white daughters. Finally, Hu and Antonucci use the Social Relations Study to examine the longitudinal association between social ties and self-esteem. They examined 553 people who were 13-77 at Wave 1 in 1992. Findings indicate that network closeness matters with increases in weak and close, but not closest network size related to increase in self-esteem 23 years later. In sum, this symposium offers multiple and diverse perspectives of generations in social relations and their association with well-being over the life span.

THE LONGITUDINAL ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN SOCIAL NETWORK STRUCTURE AND SELF-ESTEEM Rita Hu, and Toni Antonucci, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States
Based on the convoy model of social relations, the current study used Latent Growth Curve Modeling to examine the associations between overall network, closest, close and weak social tie trajectories across the lifespan and self-esteem later in life. Participants (N = 553) aged 13 to 77 in Wave 1 (1992) were surveyed again in 2005 (Wave 2) and 2015 (Wave 3). The overall network size increased significantly across the lifespan (β = 0.56, SE = 0.01, p < 0.001). The closet tie size trajectories were not significantly associated with self-esteem 23 years later. The growth of the close tie size was not significantly associated with self-esteem later. Weak-tie size growth was also significantly associated with higher self-esteem later (β = 0.14, SE = 0.00, p < 0.05). The findings highlight social network's effects on self-esteem across the lifespan, as well as the critical role weak social ties play in development.

AS YOU SOW, SO SHALL YOU REAP: ADULTS' MEMORIES' EFFECT OF PARENTAL ACCEPTANCE REJECTION IN CHILDHOOD ON AGING PARENTS Sumbleen Ali, and Ronald Rohner, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, United States
Little is known how adults' memories of parental acceptance-rejection in childhood influence their behavior toward their aging parents. Grounded in interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory (IPARTheory), this study attempts to better understand how early parent-child relationships affect adult offspring who provide care to their parents in later life. Data were collected from 41 Innovation in Aging, 2022, Vol. 6, No.S1 adult offspring. Findings revealed that adults who felt rejected by their parents in childhood reported fewer positive caregiving behaviors toward their now aging parents, were less satisfied with social activities with their parents, spent less time with them or visited them less frequently, and revealed less overall concern for their aging parents. Results were consistent with IPARTheory's expectations that if parents reject their children, then parents place their own dependent old age at the risk of counter rejection: As you sow, so shall you reap. Such findings may help researchers, clinicians, and practitioners better understand the well-being of aging adults.

DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL CONVOYS: TRAJECTORIES OF CONVOY STRUCTURE AND COMPOSITION FROM CHILDHOOD THROUGH ADULTHOOD
Jasmine Manalel 1 , Jennifer Cleary 2 , and Toni Antonucci 2 , 1. Hunter College,New York,New York,United States,2. University of Michigan,Ann Arbor,Michigan,United States This study examines stability and change in social convoys from childhood to adulthood and variation in trajectories of convoy characteristics by gender and race. Multilevel models for convoy structure and composition were estimated using longitudinal data spanning 23 years. Respondents included a sample of 193 children aged 8 to 12 in Wave 1 (1992) who were surveyed again in their 20s (Wave 2) and 30s (Wave 3). Changes in composition, proximity, and contact frequency were observed at each wave. Between Waves 1 and 2, changes reflected age-normative trends toward network diversification typical of the transition to adulthood. Between Waves 2 and 3, changes were consistent with those expected as young adults settle into stable roles. We also identified convoy characteristics that differed between men and women and between Black and White individuals, emphasizing the importance of personal characteristics to fully understand form and function of social relations across the lifespan. Studies of intergenerational relations typically conceptualize advice as a positive dimension of exchanges between parents and adult children. In contrast, we suggest that advice may often be a source of interpersonal stress and thus have detrimental effects on psychological well-being. Further, we suggest that these effects vary by race and gender. To address these questions, we use data from 725 adult children regarding advice from mothers, collected as part of the Within-Family Differences Study. Multilevel regression analyses revealed that the impact of receiving advice varied by the combination of gender and race. Among sons, receiving advice predicted higher depressive symptoms, regardless of race. However, receiving advice predicted depressive symptoms among Black but not White daughters. Taken together, these findings question whether advice is a positive dimension of intergenerational interaction and suggest that mothers' advice may have a negative impact on adult children's depressive symptoms, particularly for sons and Black daughters.

GRAY DIVORCE: AN INCREASINGLY COMMON PATH TO UNCOUPLING IN LATER LIFE Chair: Torbjörn Bildtgård
Late life divorce is rapidly increasing in large parts of the Western world, in what has been described as a "gray divorce revolution". In the US the incidence of gray divorce doubled between 1990 and 2010, in Sweden it has more than doubled since the millennium and in Israel it has almost doubled since 1996. Still, gray divorce remains rather invisible both in family sociology, which mainly focuses divorce at earlier ages, and in gerontology, which still tends to view widowhood as the single path to late life uncoupling. This symposium introduces current research on gray divorce and addresses a range of questions, such as: Why do people divorce late in life? How does gray divorce affect later life, including economy, health, support networks and relationships to adult children? How do cultural values shape gray divorce? What is the difference between his and her gray divorce? The presenters represent different countries (the US, Israel and Sweden) and approach the topic of gray divorce with both quantitative and qualitative data.

University of Gävle, Gävle, Gavleborgs Lan, Sweden
In later years divorce rates for older people has increased in many parts of the Western world in what has been described as a "grey divorce revolution". In Sweden divorce rates for people 60+ have more than doubled since the millennium. The purpose of this paper is to study the reasons older people attribute to their late life divorce. Qualitative interviews were carried out with Swedish men and women aged 62-82 who after the age of 60 had divorced from a cross-gender marital or non-marital cohabiting union (n=37). The interviews covered themes regarding the divorce process, including reasons for divorce, experiences of divorce and life as a grey divorcee. The results were analysed using principles from Grounded Theory. The results revealed four different types of divorce narratives: 1) Incompatible goals for the third age, 2) Personality change caused by age related disease, 3) A last chance for romance, and 4) Enough of inequality and abuse. A central insight generated by the study was the importance attributed to the particular existential conditions of later life in the divorce decisions. The results are discussed in relation to theories of the third age as a time of self-fulfillment, where the partner can either be part of or an obstacle to that project.